It's been a while since my last post, spending the week in Gaithersburg, MD at NIST this week - hanging with the Model Based Design crowd and learning everything I can about Mechanical Engineering...
So on Monday of Thanksgiving week, we drove Silvia (1984 300 SD) from Littleton, MA to Lorton, VA to board the Amtrak Car train, bound for Sanford, FL to deliver her to my son in flight school @ Florida Institute of Technology.
Packed to the gills with a custom built toolbox for my son, (thanks for everyone's suggestions!), our luggage, and three of us, we left at 9pm and Silvia drove through the night at full power, not a hiccup, not a hint of complaint. Easily 25+ MPG the whole way. It's ever so much easier to drive through New York city at 2am, and even easier to drive through Washington DC at 4 am...
She seemed to enjoy the train ride, and thankfully started right up for the train car attendants in Sanford the next day. A short ride from Sanford to Melbourne, and we picked up my son and at the last minute, his new girlfriend for the ride to Key West.
Silvia seemed to enjoy being back in Florida (her original port of entry), as we headed for the Keys. Stopped in Miami to refuel and top off the AC compressor. Packed even more to the gills, now with 5 pax and all our luggage, she was a little slower off the mark (if you can imagine that), but still willing to do 72MPH @ 3K RPM and 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
We made it to Key West (where I was born), and spent that week driving about and generally enjoying ourselves. We had Thanksgiving dinner @ Kelly's (named after Kelly McGillis of Top Gun fame), and the site of the very first Pan Am ticket office. Friday flew by and before we knew it, we were headed back north through the Keys to Miami, where we parted ways with Silvia, my son and his girlfriend. While we flew home to Boston, he drove back to Melbourne, both parties arriving to their destinations at nearly the same time.
Since then, he's taken it to Orlando and back at least once, maybe twice (he'll only admit to once) as a taxi run for his college buddies....at present she's parked, locked, car covered and in a safe car park. He even managed to coax the cruise control back to life, which I had given up on 2 years ago (Apparently, I just wasn't sufficently patient to hold the actuating lever up long enough to engage!).
Hopefully Silvia is now happy in Florida, and serving a new and noble purpose. No doubt I'll be posting updates and perhaps the occasional request for advice. If anyone knows of PAP's in the Melbourne, FL area - or even better - a reputable Mercedes diesel mechanic in the area, please let me know.
That's it for now, happy holidays to all, and here's to 2015 and another 25K mi to add to the 300K already on this insanely reliable motor and transmission...
cheers,
-Barton
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Posted by: Barton Fiske <barton.fiske@gmail.com>
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